Wednesday, November 30, 2016

I love Christmas & I love giving. In the spirit of giving, I am sharing some of my favorite tech tool websites as TPT flash freebies. These lessons are designed for the tech lab and are written for students to learn how to use these tools. You can also download them to learn how to use the tool yourself, and then integrate these tools with lesson that fit your classroom. There will be 12 of them {one for each 'day of Christmas'}. Each flash freebie will be downloaded from my TPT store and will only be available for 24 hours. All I ask is that if you use it in your classroom and love it, holler back at me and leave feedback on my TPT store or comment on this post so I can see how you liked it :)

Monday, November 28, 2016

It's that time of year again! I love Christmas and wanted to share with you some of my favorite online Christmas activities that my students enjoy each year! These are all kid-friendly websites and most of them are free of any ads. Some are educational and others are just fun for early finishers or Christmas parties!

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Computer Science is growing more and more popular and there is a great push for it in schools. You can read more about President Obama's push for Computer Science For All here. That being said, here are some of my favorite tools to get students involved in Computer Science through coding.

This is one of my favorite videos to show that coding is really a skill that EVERYONE should know! Show this before you code if your students {or yourself} are hesitant about coding.

Code.org - For MS students, there are 20 hour long courses that start with drag and drop blocks and end with students creating their own codes from scratch.

High School -Code HS offers a variety of different coding courses (pictured below) with the opportunity for students to move past drag and drop coding and into text based coding. There are both Java and Python options. There are checkpoint quizzes for you to see how students are doing, and as a teacher you can see the solutions and give feedback for each problem.

Here's to finding a way to involve Computer Science in your classrooms,
Mrs. Tech

Monday, November 21, 2016

One of my favorite parts of teaching when I was in the classroom full time was always creative writing. There are so many activities that we do that have RIGHT and WRONG answers, that I loved the fact that creative writing allowed students to express themselves in any way they felt appropriate.

Now that I am in my tech classroom, I don't have as many opportunities to do this, but I do enjoy a good writing assignment every once and a while. I just have them type it and turn it in instead of handwriting it {That makes it tech class appropriate, right?}

Anyways, here are some of my favorite prompts with a Thanksgiving Focus {the students loved them too}. Grab them in my TPT store for free! Happy Thanksgiving,Mrs. Tech

Friday, November 18, 2016

I am just sitting here this morning in my classroom reflecting on how thankful I am for all that I am blessed with --

An amazing husband (of almost 10 months)

The sweetest pup (my first dog EVER that we rescued in July)

A gorgeous first home

A job with the best kids

and most recently, my TPT community

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I'm not going to bore you with my long list of thanks. Instead, I want to show you how appreciative I am for you and your support on this new journey I embarked on in the middle of September.

Check the links below to find some freebies in my TPT store. They are great quick activities to use in your classroom. Also, download my FREE Math Task Cards (2 digit addition without regrouping) - special for my blow followers! Enjoy!

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Plickers is a super great resource for assessment at any point in your lessons. Basically, each student is assigned a piece of paper that is linked to their name on the teachers side. At any point, you can ask a question from the app, and scan the students papers across the room and read their answers. It's real time formative assessment and couldn't be any easier. I just have my students keep their QR code (plickers paper) in their pencil box or in a book that's always at their desk. Within a minute, I can ask the question and know where students stand on if they are getting it or not. You can download the cards for Plickers for free and the app is available on Google Play store or the App Store and is so easy to use.

Seriously y'all, you won't be disappointed. The learning curve is basically nonexistent and it takes very little prep work on your end. Such an easy tool to start using and you'll wow your principal the next time they come for an observation.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Check out my {and tons of other TPT sellers} Thanksgiving resources on sale for the next three days! Now is the time to prepare what you are going to cover when it comes to this special holiday, so find your favorite products now while you can get them at a discount! My resources are linked below or use the hashtag #ThankfulSales to search for all products on sale on TPT.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Padlet is one of my favorite tools to use for exit tickets and bell ringers. It is basically a virtual bulletin board where your students can post pictures, text, video, or audio recording in response to a prompt that you choose. Try it once in your class and I can almost guarantee that you'll love it!

Above is a Padlet I used during Teacher Inservice to talk about Padlet. As you can see, it's a work in progress. Here are step-by-step (SUPER SIMPLE) directions on how to set up your first Padlet! If you are more of a visual learner, check out my video on how to attack Padlet for the first time!

Directions:

Go
to padlet.com and click on Create a Padlet

Choose
a Title and a Description.

Then
choose one of the three prearranged layouts, and a wallpaper (to be the
background of your wall). You may also pick an icon to show what your padlet is
about. Then click NEXT.

You
will now choose your privacy. You will need to choose secret (which means it
can only be accessed by those who have the link. Click NEXT.

Now
set up your board so what everyone who visits will see what you have on there.
If you want them to contribute a certain picture or text, make sure you make
them aware of that! Make it look appealing so that those who visit will want to
leave information for you!

Lastly,
copy your link (you can customize it if you want) and share it with the class so that your students can all contribute to
your board.

If you want a handout to have your students create their own Padlet, you can check mine out here!

Have fun exploring,

Mrs. Tech

Try it out & let me know what you think,
Mrs. Tech

*If you are more of a visual learner, check out my "how to" video on using Padlet, as well as some way to use it in the classroom.

**If you want to have your students try out Padlet, download this tool that walks you through the set up and where to find all of the tools that you need.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Hey y'all! Never too early to talk about Thanksgiving, right? Here are some of my favorite sites to use in class with my elementary tech students. I also enjoy using some of these Thanksgiving writing prompts to start off my classes. I love to listen to students and the things they are thankful for.